A Conference on Uyghur crisis and professor Ilham Tohti
Posts by ilhamtoh
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Where has Ilham Tohti been held since 15 January?
Reporters Without Borders calls on the authorities to stop holding Uyghur academic and citizen-journalist Ilham Tohti incommunicado. Tohti’s family has received no news of him since his arrest at his Beijing home on 15 January. No one knows for sure, but he may have been secretly transferred to a prison in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. “The public security bureau in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, has reported online that Ilham Tohti is accused of inciting separatism but no police station has been able to tell his family where he is being held,” said Benjamin Ismaïl, the head of the Reporters Without Borders Asia-Pacific desk. “We deplore the use of methods that are illegal under both Chinese law and international standards. We call on the authorities to reveal where they are holding Tohti and to allow his lawyer and his family to visit him.” According to a report posted online on 25 January, the authorities accuse Tohti of heading a separatist group that advocates the use of violence to overthrow the Chinese government in Xinjiang and of using his Uygurbiz.com website to recruit followers. The authorities also claim to suspect him of links with the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement, which wants an Islamic state in “Eastern Turkistan” (Xinjiang) and which the Chinese government regards as terrorist organization responsible for acts of violence. To help Tohti, Reporters Without Borders urges everyone to put pressure on authorities to reveal his location by calling as many police stations in Beijing and Urumqi as possible and asking: -> Qing wen, Ilham Tohti zai nali?” (Pinyin) -> Tching wen, Yīlìhāmù Tǔhètí zaï nali? (Phonetic) -> 请问，伊力哈木•土赫提 在哪里 ? Click here : Sina weibo account of the policeFill the contact form of the Police HERE (see how to fill it) Phone numbers of police stations in Beijing : Agrandir le plan Phone numbers of police stations […]
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Interview: ‘They Are Doing The Exact Opposite of What my Father Suggested’
Jewher Ilham, the daughter of jailed Uyghur academic Ilham Tohti, is a graduate from Indiana University who has spoken out in support of his peaceful promotion of equal rights and greater autonomy for the Turkic speaking Uyghur ethnic group in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). Tohti, currently serving a life jail term for “separatism,” won the prestigious Martin Ennals Award 2016 for human rights, the Liberal International Prize for Freedom in 2017, and Freedom House’s Freedom Award in 2019. The jailed professor is also a nominee for the 2019 Sakharov Prize and the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. Ilham spoke to RFA about her father’s case and Beijing’s policies in the XUAR, where authorities are believed to have held more than 1.5 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities accused of harboring “strong religious views” and “politically incorrect” in a vast network of internment camps since April 2017. Ilham referred to the facilities as ‘concentration camps’—a term also used by U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Randall G. Schriver and the Uyghur exile community. RFA: How do you envision a path to your father’s release from prison? Ilham: Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s happening soon, based on the Chinese government’s recent actions, such as the concentration camps and other Uyghur scholars like [jailed former head of Xinjiang University] Tashpolat Teyip. I haven’t seen good signs, especially since I haven’t heard anything about my father since 2017—his condition, or if he has been transferred to another prison. We don’t know anything about it. But I’m always keeping hope and it’s very important to be positive. If you lose hope, then you lose everything. RFA: After speaking with President Trump and other officials about your father and the situation in the XUAR, do you feel confident that the U.S. government will take meaningful […]
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Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize awarded to Ilham Tohti
The Council of Europe has awarded its prestigious annual human rights award to imprisoned Uighur activist Ilham Tohti. It has also jointly honored the Balkan-based Youth Initiative for Human Rights. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Monday jointly awarded its human rights prize to Chinese Uighur public intellectual Ilham Tohti and the Balkan-based Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR). “In honoring them, we also send a message of hope to the millions of people they represent and for whom they work: human rights have no frontiers,” PACE president Liliane Maury Pasquier said during a prize-giving ceremony. PACE✔@PACE_News · Sep 30, 2019Replying to @PACE_News Enver Can of the Ilham Tohti Initiative receives the Prize on behalf of Mr Tohti, who has been in prison in China since 2014: “Today’s prize honours one person, but it also recognises a whole population in giving the entire #Uyghur people a voice.” PACE✔@PACE_News Ivan Djuric receives the #HavelPrize on behalf of @YIHR_Croatia @YIHRSerbia @YIHRKosovo @YIHRBiH and http://yihr.me http://yihr.org with pride, but warns: “Don’t play deaf to the sound of war drums from the Balkans… we’re not strangers, we’re Europeans.” 2811:04 AM – Sep 30, 2019Twitter Ads info and privacySee PACE’s other Tweets The Vaclav Havel Human Rights Award — named after the famed former playwright, president of the Czech Republic and democracy activist — carries a prize of €60,000 ($65,500). Enver Can of the Ilham Tohti Initiative, who represented Tohti at the event, vowed to continue efforts to free the Uighur economist, who was jailed for life in 2014 by a Chinese court on charges of inciting separatism. The YIHR in the Balkans, founded in 2003, describes itself as a group campaigning for justice, equality, democracy and peace; it places particular importance on building cooperation between young activists from different countries and communities in the Balkans. “Don’t play deaf to the […]
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China slams European Parliament for award to ‘terrorist’ Ilham Tohti
BEIJING (AFP) – China hit out at the European Parliament on Friday (Oct 25) for awarding a key human rights prize to jailed Uighur intellectual Ilham Tohti, saying that he is a “terrorist”. Tohti – a former economics professor sentenced to life imprisonment in 2014 by Beijing – was announced as the winner of the Sakharov Prize on Thursday. But Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying said at a press briefing on Friday that giving the award to Tohti was “problematic”. “I hope that Europe can respect China’s internal affairs and judicial sovereignty, and avoid celebrating a terrorist,” she said. The outspoken Tohti was convicted for “separatism” in a trial that provoked outcry from foreign governments and human rights organisations. European Parliament head David Sassoli urged Beijing to immediately release Tohti as he announced the award, calling him a “voice of moderation and reconciliation”. “I don’t know what exactly this prize is, what its importance, value or impact are,” said Hua. “But what I know is Ilham Tohti is a criminal convicted by Chinese courts.” Tohti, who turned 50 on Friday, was also awarded the top Vaclav Havel award in September for “giving the entire Uighur people a voice”. He has also been nominated by US lawmakers for the Nobel Peace Prize, amid growing scrutiny of China’s treatment of the Uighurs. Rights groups and experts say more than one million Uighurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic minorities have been rounded up in internment camps in the north-west region of Xinjiang. China initially denied the existence of the camps, but now says they are “vocational training schools” necessary to combat terrorism. Before his arrest in January 2014, Tohti founded and ran the UighurOnline website, which wrote in Uighur and Chinese about social issues. He gained prominence as a moderate voice drawing attention […]
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